


I'll Be Born Without a Mask

by Lilander



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Play, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bendemption, Clothed Sex, Dominant Finn (Star Wars), Finn did run away at Takodana, Finndemption?, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Oral Sex, Praise Kink, Smuggler!Ben, Submissive Kylo Ren
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:54:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21682549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilander/pseuds/Lilander
Summary: Two years ago, FN-2187, coward first-class, booked it off Takodana for the Outer Rim.A year ago, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren disappeared from the First Order, and good fucking riddance.A month ago, Finn took a job with a smuggler called Ben. The sex is—weird. Ben’s talking-to-ghosts crazy and he never takes off his mask, but at least it’s a distraction from the nightmares of the scavenger Finn left to die.Last night, Finn found a lightsaber.
Relationships: Finn/Ben Solo, Finn/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Finn/Kylo Ren
Comments: 7
Kudos: 99
Collections: Finnlo-Focused Multiship Anthology 2019





	I'll Be Born Without a Mask

Finn jerks off like a soldier: disciplined, with bolt-action pumps and choked-off gasps he pretends the Supreme Leader outside the ‘fresher door can’t hear. Ex-Supreme Leader. The one who’s probably reading Finn’s mind, eavesdropping on his guilt-threaded fantasies of a scavenger’s mouth around his cock.

Maybe it’s a coincidence, you know? Maybe, under the mask, the man he’s been fucking for a month really is a washed-up smuggler called Ben. Maybe he pulled that lightsaber off a junkpile somewhere.

“You’ve been in there for ten minutes,” Ben complains. “It’s excessive.” 

Finn chokes, cock depressurizing, because no, that is _definitely_ Kylo Ren. 

“I’m working on it,” Finn calls over the metallic whir of the sink pump. He kicks the head, almost drowning out Ben’s voice with the flush.

“I’m getting impatient, Mr. Solo.”

Ben always mocks Finn’s choice of a last name, but what was he supposed to do? Finn Hux? Finn Dameron? Finn fucking Skywalker? No, Finn Solo has a nice ring, though he can never decide if he’s honoring Han or embarrassing him.

Finn pumps himself a few more times, grimacing, and makes himself think about a scavenger’s lips around him, the freckles on her hollowed cheeks, the challenge in her eyes and the dirt on her knees as he lowers her down on the Takodana grass, before the airstrike blew up the grass and the girl with it. 

It’s wrong, to think of her like this. Not that shame ever stops him from doing it, and anyway it’s not like he’s gonna use his go-to fantasies of Ben sliding off that mask and kneeling in front of him—

Finn shuts off the sink. He slams open the door and walks through the galley toward his cabin, and of course Ben sits in the galley booth like always, the black holes of the Mandalorian mask focused on a data pad. When Finn walks out, the mask bobs a little, like it’s surprised, and Finn stifles a hysterical laugh—Kylo Ren is checking him out.

So maybe Finn’s gone as crazy as Ben. Maybe the circadian disruption and the loneliness and the guilt finally cracked him. For all he knows he’s actually scrunched up in some reconditioning facility on the _Finalizer,_ talking to voices just like Ben, rocking back and forth and humping his own sweaty restraint jacket while Phasma lectures cadets about the perils of deviant thoughts.

Finn shakes his head and runs his fingers through his braids. They’re getting long, ear-length, a pointless little middle-finger to regulation.

"What," Ben demands like nothing's wrong, like he's not an ex-warlord.

"What? Nothing." Finn finds himself at the galley sink and, presented with no better option, turns it on.

"You were just in the 'fresher for ten minutes and now you're washing your hands."

"Maybe I care about hygeine, okay? Mind your own damn business."

Damn it, he _liked_ Ben. He likes their routine: every morning Ben gets up preternaturally early, and if he doesn’t haul Finn out of bed demanding to be fucked, he makes a pot of caf better than it has any right to be out here and leaves Finn a jogan-fruit nutrition bar because he knows that’s Finn’s favorite. At night, Ben sits in his mask and scans a datapad while Finn puts in earbuds and watches bootleg Republic holovids, and Ben tells him that stuff is degenerate and stomps around making the dinner he always takes back to his cabin.

Ben’s been lounging in the booth longer every night, and the fucking gets better and better, though he still never takes off his mask. It’s not much, but it’s a damn sight better than Finn’s had since he left Takodana.

“You're on edge, _Mr. Solo_.”

He’s toying with Finn. That’s what this is. Kylo Ren is a sadistic bastard and he’s gonna let this go on and on until Finn cracks, and Finn’s too close to cracking as it is after two years with nothing but the guilt to keep him company.

“Why do you keep making fun of my name, huh?” Finn asks, because he knows he’s gotta say something but he’s not ready to put all out there. “Do you even have a last name?”

The helmet hisses like it’s depressurizing, and Finn almost turns around before he remembers the thing is just metal, not a proper mask. Ben’s laughing, but there’s no humor in it. 

“Yeah, I’ve got a last name.”

“What is it?”

The mask tilts up like he’s smirking. “Solo.”

“Oh, you’re think you’re pretty funny, huh?”

“Maybe we’re brothers,” Ben continues, and yes, he’s absolutely Kylo Ren, there’s that bored tone he used with the troopers, like he resented having to breathe the same air they did. Ben stands, and one glove gestures at Finn’s crotch. “Wouldn’t that make this awkward.”

With that Ben turns toward his own cabin, and Finn, like an idiot, follows. Maybe craming yourself into a room with a madman isn’t a smart thing to do, but now Finn’s committed, and anyway Kylo Ren doesn’t need to touch him to kill him.

Finn’s never actually been in his cabin before. He has to duck under the narrow shelf suspended from the ceiling, and the floor barely has enough room for the cot, a footlocker, a gun-safe, and a bottle of Corellian whiskey Ben’s never offered to share.

“I don’t remember inviting you to my quarters,” Ben says as he goes to the footlocker. _Quarters_ , like they’re on a starship. Finn hoped he’d drop the evil-villain act after the first few days, but he kept talking like a pretentious asswipe, and Finn figured Ben was just another antisocial rim dweller with a fake-dark-lord act to scare off the people he was scared of. Finn balls his fist in his pocket and tries to screw up the courage he never had.

He’s gotta say something.

“You’re looking for some kind of punishment, is that it?” Finn asks. “Is it guilt, for what you did?”

Ben’s gloves pause on the keypad of his footlocker, but just for a second. 

“And what is it you think you know about what I did?” he asks. His voice is calm, even amused.

This is it, isn’t it? He’s daring Finn to put it all out in the open, and suddenly all Finn can think about is seeing this man choke Hux or Cardinal or even Phasma from across a deck. This man, the man who just yelled at him to quit jerking off in the ‘fresher, stopped blaster bolts in mid-air and calmly ordered the execution of a village full of women and children.

Finn opens his mouth to accuse him, but he can’t get the words out. It’s not a magic thing, nobody’s choking him. It’s coming from the inside. The mask turns toward him, almost like it’s satisfied, then he goes back to opening his footlocker.

“My name is Ben Solo,” he says. “I’m a smuggler. Anything else you think you know, you don’t. And since I had to pull you out of a First Order detainment center, I’m sure you’d prefer not to end up in another one. So I suggest you take anything else you think you know, and ensure that it’s forgotten. Do I make myself clear?”

That _voice_ , that voice reaches right into the center of him to the place where he keeps the nightmares and the screaming and the bloody handprints and Rey. But Finn’s not gonna die the coward he used to be.

Finn tries to do what he always does when he’s nervous, cocking his body to the side to mimic Han’s easy give-no-fuckery. “Something tells me you don’t wanna end up in a First Order prison either.”

“Does anyone?”

“So we have an understanding,” Finn says “One fugitive to another.”

Ben’s fingers resume entering his passkey. “One traitor to another.”

Before Finn can respond, Ben pops his footlocker open and bends to retrieve what Finn assumes he sleeps in, a pair of loose shorts. Finn’s never seen him sleep.

“I’m going to use the sonic,” Ben says, his voice not exactly light, but not the stuff of horrors, either.

As he swings the metal door shut Finn catches a glimpse of what he swears is a doll, a raggedy thing sheathed in orange fabric like Poe’s flight suit. Finn lost the Resistance pilot’s jacket over a year ago; he can’t even remember what Poe’s face looked like, or Rey’s.

“Sure,” Finn says, because he doesn’t want to think about why the ex-Supreme Leader keeps a Resistance doll locked away in his chest of secrets, or the fact that he’s apparently being asked to go about his business without ever mentioning the fact that he’s in the middle of nowhere fucking Kylo Ren.

So Finn juts his chin toward the helmet. “Do you shower with that thing on?”

“No. Why are you still in my quarters?”

“Cabin,” Finn corrects.

Ben turns around, and the room is so small he’s practically chest-to-chest with Finn. The breath that puffs out of the mask smells like carbcake and surplus First Order toothpaste.

“What did you say?” Ben asks.

“You don’t have _quarters_ , not on this ship. You have a cabin, and you sound like an ass.”

The blank eye-holes of the Mandalorian mask meet his, and for a moment Finn imagines a face blinking down at him—forty-something, bald, maybe, covered in burns or scars he feels like he has to hide even on his own ship. Maybe Ben wears it so he doesn’t have to see his face in a mirror.

Ben is very, very close to him. 

The man raises his arm, and for an artery-blocking second Finn thinks he might be about to touch his cheek. What he does is worse: he reaches over Finn’s shoulder and taps the door control. The doors slide closed.

That’s it, then. Finn poked a wild rancor and now he’s gonna die. Mostly, he’s surprised it took this long, he’s surprised it’s in a comfortable cabin and not in a squalid cell somewhere. It’s better than he deserves.

But Ben doesn’t put his hand on Finn’s throat. Instead, he drops his glove to Finn’s belt.

Finn’s mouth has fallen open. “What are you doing?”

The man ignores him and keeps fumbling with his pants. When the button pops free, he moves to his own, and one glove disappears into his underwear. Ben and brings himself out, fully hard.

Ben is angry, hunched over himself like he’s furious he has to admit to needing…whatever it is he’s getting from the sandpaper pounding he’s inflicting on himself.

Finn’s cock twitches, his chest constricts.

“You know what I’m doing,” Ben says. “You know what I want, and I told you, I’m impatient.”

The tone balances somewhere between a reprimand and a plea, but something about the words drill straight into the dark places in Finn’s brain where the programmers did their work. His Supreme Leader has given him an order.

But he’s not that man anymore, and the one who gave him the order isn’t his Supreme Leader, he isn’t even Snoke’s enforcer or Hux’s lapdog anymore. He’s just a man, broken, pathetic, hiding in a mask and running from ghosts. 

Ben stretches a hand up to the shelf and pulls down a clear plastic bottle. He shoves it at Finn, who blinks down at the familiar label: an obscene cartoon penis, species indeterminate, in shades of pink and purple. Then he looks back at Ben, considering. 

Does the man...get off on this? Does he _like_ knowing that Finn knows?

“Take off the mask,” Finn says.

“No.”

Maybe not. Maybe what he wants is less complicated.

Ben shoves his gloves onto the mattress, and the man’s muscles are so taut and his breathing is so shallow that Finn hesitates. The five exposed inches of the former ruler of the galaxy’s ass is familiar now, pale, muscular, inviting, just laying there, wide open and eager and bobbing up and down as he strokes his cock.

Finn swallows and flicks open the lube, his earlier impotence wiped away by adrenaline and the sheer fact of Ben’s--Kylo Ren’s--willing ass in front of him. 

“Hurry up,” Ben growls. Usually Ben gets himself ready, opening himself with a lube-slick glove while Finn watches.

“If I rush it it’s gonna hurt,” Finn says, cock aching, not sure why he cares about Ben’s pain.

“That’s the fucking point.”

Ben likes to hurt—Finn’s learned that about him since they started this, learned he likes Finn to dig his fingers into his robes, to pull back on the fabric so the blood can’t reach his head. Finn’s not even sure the other man gets off most of the time; he’s only seen flashes of his cock and the smear of liquid over the glove. Finn never thought much of it, really. Ben the Smuggler’s not the first man to look for a little faceless absolution up against a dirty ventilator shaft in the Outer Rim; neither is Kylo Ren.

Damn it. Finn picks up the bottle again and squirts some cold lubricant into his palm. If they’re doing it, Finn’s doing it on his own terms.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Ben demands when Finn’s slicked finger circles him. His voice is strained, and he chokes when Finn pushes his knuckle through, because this is new for both of them. It’s hot, and smoother than Finn expected, though he’s not really sure what he expected.

He’s so tight, and as Finn fucks him with one finger he stays tight. 

“Just fuck me,” Ben says through clenched teeth.

“No.”

Ben sucks in an echoing breath at that, the defiance Finn doesn’t usually show. So he likes taking orders, huh? Kylo Ren likes taking orders and he likes getting choked. Finn laughs a little as he fucks Ben languidly with two fingers and runs his other hand appreciatively down Ben’s overdeveloped glutes. Apparently Kylo Ren wasn’t so special that he got out of mandatory PT. 

Ben moans, and it occurs to Finn that the other man needs this.

“I don’t,” Ben protests.

“Oh, so you _are_ reading my mind?”

This isn’t comforting; it’s the first really concrete proof that he is who Finn thinks he is.

“What else am I supposed to do?” Ben says, voice mostly but not entirely under control in a way that does things to Finn’s cock. “So far you’ve done nothing to command my attention.”

Finn plunges both fingers in with the full force of a punch, enjoying the man’s surprised grunt. He’s heard there’s something more to this, a spot that feels good, and he gropes around the warm heat of him, searching. Another stifled sound tells him when he’s found it.

“Why do you talk like that, huh? Like Hux, or one of the commanders.”

“I _am_ one of the commanders. And I have no intention of talking about Hux while your fingers are in my ass.”

Finn grimaces and palms his cock. Ben’s almost ready, and Finn’s starting to wonder if he really is crazy, to enjoy antagonizing a man who can throw him across the room with his mind.

“So you two never did this? We all wondered—”

“Does your cock even work, stormtrooper?” Ben taunts, and Finn rewards the strain in his voice with slick swipes of his fingers. This is all tit-for-tat, a meaningless transaction, pleasure for pleasure, like always, and now it’s a power-game. But yeah, Finn likes the shivers that run up and down Ben’s spine when Finn’s nails graze the small of his back under his tunic. He likes the growl Ben makes when Finn lines up his cock. 

Finn holds himself up on Ben’s lats and breathes through his nose. Ben’s slippery and _so tight_ and he clenches Finn’s cock in a chokehold and there’s the earthy, dirty smell Finn likes. 

He starts to move, and Ben jerks away from him in little reflexive movements as Finn pushes inside inch by clamping inch. Ben throws his head back, making Finn imagine what his hair looks like, what color it would be under the mask.

Finn slams into him, not gentle, because he said he wanted this to hurt, didn’t he? But the stroke sends both of them panting and gasping. Somebody whispers _fuck_. 

Underneath him, Ben holds himself still and silent like he’s determined not to enjoy this. Or at least he tries to, but he groans when Fin pushes his long black-wrapped legs further out to the side, straining against the pants he’s barely pulled down. Ben presses his mask down into the sheet he’s balled in one fist, holding it up against his face, covering himself even though there’s nothing exposed.

Finn wants more.

He pulls his clean hand off Ben’s hips and reaches around to find what he needs: Ben’s cock, a bouncing hot handful of him that’s so heavy against Finn’s palm.

“You like that,” Finn says, not asking. “You like it when I make you come?”

“Is this a power fantasy for you?” Ben pants. “A stormtrooper pretending to be a free man?”

Finn yanks Ben’s robe back by the hood at that, cutting off Ben’s air and pulling him against his chest. “I’m not a stormtrooper,” Finn says, and he does what Ben wants: he makes him hurt. 

“You—are nothing—but what they made you,” Ben pants as Finn pumps him, hauling him back onto his cock in vicious strokes until finally Ben lets out a strangled sound and goes boneless. His muscles jerk around Finn, pulling Finn’s own orgasm from him with a stifled grunt.

Finn collapses forward, falling with Ben to the bed.

He hopes to the Force he didn’t say anybody’s name. He’s pretty sure he didn’t, since Ben allows Finn to just rest against the robe on his back.

After he slides out he wipes his cock against Ben’s pants and his hand across Ben’s robes because he can. As Finn lazily watches the whiteness smear across the fabric he reflects that he’d like to come all over Ben’s back, and his chest, and his face, too. He’d like to watch the lips and tongue he hasn’t seen lick the cum from Finn’s skin after he gets them both off.

It’s not the appropriate response to what Ben said, or to what Kylo Ren is. But nothing about this is appropriate, or good. That’s fine. Finn left good and evil back on Takodana.

 _You’re nothing but what they made you._ It’s an odd thing for the Supreme Leader to say. They, not we, like he was something separate and blameless.

“You’re wrong,” Finn murmurs. As comebacks go, it’s not very clever, but it’s at least better than the _fuck you_ Ben spits into the mask. Neither of them makes a move to get up. After a minute, Ben awkwardly wrenches his hand out from under their pelvises to wipe it his own glove on the bedspread.

Ben elbows Finn in the ribs, and Finn slides off him, moving his arm just in time to avoid accidentally holding him.

“I’m going to clean up,” Ben says, absurdly, since the sonic belongs to him and it’s not like he needs Finn’s permission. But for almost a full minute he keeps laying there like there’s something unfinished, something Finn’s refusing to give him, or something Finn can’t.

The former ruler of the galaxy makes a vague gesture and rolls off the bed, hauling his pants back up as he does. Finn closes his eyes and listens to the head and then the dull hum of the sink, letting the pleasant ache in his thighs from the exertion dim the horror of his situation. 

Then, like he does every night, Finn gathers his clothes and goes back to his own cabin. He takes the whiskey with him.

***

And there are Ben’s voices again. There’s the voice standing in the desert in a dream, the voice full of red, and the voice that resolves out of the darkness when Finn blinks awake, not arguing tonight, but soft, pleading. The chrono flashes 02:00 hours and Finn digs under his pillow for the shank he filed out of an old fuselage panel, just in case, and strains to listen. 

Finn would rather ignore Ben’s ranting the way he’s learned to ignore the people snapping at phantoms in squalid, trash-lined corners on all the planets where the Order hasn’t cleaned them up. But Finn can’t ignore it; there’s something true about Ben’s fights with his voices, and Finn’s in danger now. He needs the truth. 

Finn slips out of his cot and cringes at the too-loud hiss of his cabin doors, but when Ben doesn’t come running, Finn pads out toward the galley. Not up to anything, just taking a piss. But nothing happens, there’s no sound. Maybe Ben knows he’s out here.

Or, no, there it is, low an urgent whispering. Finn risks putting his ear up to the durasteel door.

“—not like the other times. This is the entire fleet, and they could be there in days. They’ll slaughter you if you go there—No, listen to me, you have a ship, take it. Anywhere. Name the system and I’ll meet you—”

There’s a pause, and Finn has to put a hand over his mouth to stop from gasping at the change in Ben’s voice. He sounds—desperate. 

“Don’t do this. Don’t die for those people— _please_. Please don’t do this.”

Finn can’t believe what he’s hearing, and he believes it even less when Ben gasps out another barely-coherent _please_ and falls silent except for his ragged breaths.

Finn pulls away from the door and remembers to fill one of the polymer canteens with tepid water before he heads back to his room. 

_So you got somebody killed, too, huh? You left someone to die and they’re haunting you?_

Finn’s next thought should be: _good, serves you right, asshole, I hope it hurts you too._

But it’s not.

***

The next morning’s a cargo drop, and Ben stays glued to the flight controls. He doesn’t say a word to Finn except a barked warning when they lurch out of hyperspace. Finn’s fine with this arrangement since he spent the rest of the night alternating between nightmares of Kylo Ren’s lightsaber in his heart and Rey underneath him, the skin falling off her bones. He peels open the nutrition bar Ben still remembered to leave for him and slumps down in the co-pilot’s seat, chewing thoughtfully as he runs over his plan.

Make the drop, then Ben will head to the station consoles to pick up a new job. He’ll send Finn for supplies, and Finn’ll make a run for it, stow away if he has to, maybe commandeer a speeder and disappear into the gas fields for awhile. He doubts Ben will spend much time looking for him.

He picks at a protein pellet caught between his teeth and tries not to think about the fact that Ben can read his mind.

But Ben looks like he couldn’t care less. He looks like shit, really, even though Finn can’t see a single millimeter of skin—it’s in the lines of his body, his shaky gloves on the throttle. Finn offers the nutrition bar to the mask, but the mask ignores him.

“You think I’m crazy,” the former ruler of the galaxy says.

Finn swallows and shrugs, like he’s not scared out of his mind at the slight tang of offense in Ren’s—Ben’s—voice. Is he reading Finn’s mind, or is Finn just that bad at hiding what he really thinks?

“I mean, you stay up every night talking to voices in your head,” Finn says, but then the mask turns toward him, and Finn loses his nerve. “But I get it, you know? You’ve been out here alone, in space. It gets lonely. Anybody could crack.”

“I’m not lonely.”

“Sure. But I bet you’ve seen some shit. I talk to myself, too.”

Finn hadn’t meant to add that last part, and for a moment he’s terrified the man might take it as an invitation to swap horror stories. 

“You sleep with a shank under your pillow,” Ben continues.

He doesn’t sound angry, but Finn takes a big bite of his nutrition bar and shrugs again, staring straight ahead at the violet smear of Geonosis approaching in the viewport. Will he be awake to feel himself hurled out the airlock into the cold darkness, or will Ben skewer him first? He probably won’t even bother to use the lightsaber; Finn’s nothing but a stormtrooper to him. Not worth the effort.

Ben seems to stare at the same spot Finn does. “You have it in your back pocket right now,” Ben continues, “in case I attack you.”

Finn answers with his mouth full, not taking his eyes off the viewport. “I’d use a blaster, but you keep them locked up.”

A soft sound that might be a snort gives Finn hope. Has he amused the crazy wizard? Good, it’s good to amuse him.

Finn’s not gonna get out of this. Ben knows, there’s no way he’s gonna let Finn run off and blab his location to the Order. No, Finn’s gonna die. A part of him wants to jump out of his seat and lean over Ben on the throttle and scream _fly, just fly and keep flying and fly right into that that planet_ , just to make something change.

Instead, Finn takes another bite of nutrition bar.

“Here’s what I don’t get,” Finn ventures, leaning back in a casual gesture Ben’s definitely gotta know is fake. He’s breaking the rules here, and it’s stupid, but he’s probably not gonna get out of this and he wants to know. “I don’t get a lot of news out here, but for months everybody was saying you just disappeared. Poof, gone, like the Supreme Leader just walked away.”

It’s a risk, saying the words _Supreme Leader_. The mask dips slightly, then rises again as Ben toggles the switches to begin the approach.

“Do you believe I walked away?”

Finn shakes his head, hiding the way the air whooshes out of his lungs in relief. “What, from absolute power? No way. Nobody would walk away from that.”

The mask is silent for a few seconds, double-checking something against the nav computer.

“You didn’t walk away,” Ben finally says. “You ran. You’re still running, _Mr. Solo_.”

Finn should be terrified—there it is, the conformation that this man knows exactly who and what he is, what he did. But having it out in the open, that’s good, that’s workable.

“I made a choice,” Finn says. He’s putting on a show because this is how it’s supposed to go, you die with your head held high talking about all the principles you’re supposed to be dying for. But it feels wrong, like there’s something scraping at the pulp under his skin that’s been trying to get out for two years. “I wasn’t gonna fight for them. For you.” 

Ben reaches up like he’s trying to comb cracked fingers through his hair because he forgot he was wearing a mask. It’s the kind of gesture Finn might’ve made as a kid, halting and awkward, if they ever let him grow out his hair. It’s not the gesture Finn expected when he confessed to deserting.

Maybe Ben’s playing a game with him—but people who can play games like that don’t need masks.

Finn wads up the nutrition bar wrapper, pretending like this gives him a little dignity. “So, are you gonna kill me or not?”

Ben sags over the controls, and the mass of black robes shrugs. “What’s the point?”

It’s a good question. Finn closes his mouth, and for most of the approach nobody says anything.

“Look,” Finn says when they’re coming in for a landing. “You can’t call yourself Solo.” 

“What the fuck are you talking about.”

“It was my fake name first,” Finn says. “You can’t have it. Anyway, your army killed the guy I stole it from. So, you know, that’s not right.”

Ben doesn’t answer, but the mask tilts up to the golden dice swinging above the dash, like he’s asking, _what’s the point?_

***

Finn grabs the wall to keep from passing out. 

His escape plan’s shot to hell since the droid running inventory no doubt got a scan of their faces under their masks, and their contact, the one lying impaled on the dirty warehouse floor, managed to punch his comm before Ben double-crossed him. Reptilian shouts go up in the distance, closing in.

“He’s dead,” Ben observes, and when Finn gets up the courage to look, Ben’s wiping his gloves on his black robe.

“No shit. You just impaled—you threw him—with your _mind_ —What the fuck?”

Ben doesn’t look at him. His voice sounds far away, like he’s just as surprised as Finn. “I got angry,” he says.

Angry. Yeah. Finn stumbles outside into what passes for fresh night air on Geonosis, deep violet and sulfurous. He gulps big breaths of it and closes his eyes. 

Finn could run now. Strip off his jacket, the helmet, maybe take his chances in the crowds milling around the station a few clicks north of here. But this is industrial country, practically abandoned except for warehouses and droids and the huge GAVs moving cargo from one place to another. He’d never make it.

A hand closes over his shoulder, and Finn whips around before he realizes it’s Ben.

“I took care of it,” Ben says. “We’re leaving now.”

Finn stares at him for a second, then, seeing that the man’s about to leave him behind, pushes himself off the filthy aluminum warehouse wall. The shouts in the distance have stopped, but it doesn’t seem like a good sign. “I saw other people working in the cargo yard—”

“I said I took care of it.”

Finn’s quiet in the ship, and it’s not until they have to jump from a barrel-roll through the blockade straight into hyperspace that he finally loses his battle with nausea.

After a few seconds huffing in the corner of the lav, considering why the hell he just got back _on_ the ship with the crazed ex-despot, Finn makes himself get up and brush his teeth. When he yanks open the ‘fresher door Ben’s standing on the other side of it, hand raised like he was about to knock, like a man who can kill with his mind has to knock.

Finn stalks past him without a word, figuring if Ben wants to kill him he’ll do it whether Finn’s polite or rude, and retreats to the galley. Ben’s left his cabin door open—a shocking oversight—and Finn slumps in the booth, glaring at it. What’s Ben got to fear? Anything valuable to him is locked up. Ben retreived the whiskey from Finn’s room and left it open on the counter like a reminder.

That cargo was marked for the Black Sun syndicate, probably bound for the Order. Just before it went to hell Finn was making small-talk their contact while Ben lurked, taking inventory.

 _You boys better stick around_ , their contact said. _Once the big guns get done on Chandrila there’s gonna be more live cargo than you can haul. There’s so many of them Resistance girls I bet you can pick one up cheap._

Ben went ballistic. But Ben’s crazy; that doesn’t mean anything.

The sonic shudders on, and it stays on for ten minutes, fifteen. No regulation ninety-second grooming sessions for the Supreme Leader, apparently. Not part of his programming.

Finn’s endured plenty of degrading scenarios since he ran away from that overgrown cantina on Takodana. He’s cleaned more bilges than he can count, he’s polished claws and toenails for fractions of a credit on the streets of planets so poor the First Order wouldn’t even skim them for slaves.

But none of that hits quite as hard as Kylo fucking Ren spending half an hour washing his probably-non-regulation hair while Finn sits here tasting vomit in his mouth, staring at the bed the ex-Supreme Leader didn’t even bother making that morning. 

Finn wipes his hand across his mouth and stomps, not to his own cabin, but to Ben’s. Maybe Ben hears him furiously wrestling his sheets into perfectly-crisp corners, or maybe he overhears the steady stream of curses running through Finn’s head. Whatever summons him, Ben comes to stand in the hatch, masked and silent, holding the bottle of whiskey. Finn spares him only a quick glance before he goes back to beating some order into the bed. 

“You don’t like blood,” Ben says, and Finn practically rips the comforter, then he attacks the pillow, flinging it at the far wall in a gesture even he has to admit is juvenile. He doesn’t notice until he’s done it that there’s something in the pillowcase. The lightsaber.

This strikes Finn as hilarious.

“Did you—Did you have this under your pillow since I found it? Do you actually think I’m gonna kill you?”

Ben doesn’t laugh. Instead, he holds out the whiskey. Finn swipes it up with as much spite as he can muster, annoyed at the shake in his hands, and knocks it back. It burns his throat.

He swishes it back and forth for a second, embarrassed, then hands it back to Ben. The tips of his gloves brush Finn’s fingers on the neck of the bottle.

Ben looks like he’s considering taking a drink, but of course he can’t, not with the mask.

“I have trouble sleeping without a weapon,” Ben says. And he’s _serious_ , he’s actually serious.

“Do you? Well I am so, so sorry about that. That really fucking breaks me up, that you have scary dreams and mean voices talking to you—”

“I knew it was you,” Ben says quietly, and Finn looks up. “On Jakku. I knew you didn’t shoot. I knew why.”

“What, are you saying you let me go?”

“Yes.”

“Why would you do that?”

The mask dips. “I don’t know.”

Finn rolls his eyes and pushes past the huge man into the galley, still holding the whiskey. The asshat who owned this ship before Ben decked out the whole interior in soft blues and purples, like some kind of pastel hell designed to make the hulking man in black look as out-of-place as possible. For all Finn knows, that’s why Ben chose it—he enjoys being miserable, an outsider, a pariah. He wears it like a crown. Finn’s met plenty of people out here like that, the loners, and he envies them. Finn’s a soldier, a coward, a herd animal, and he always will be.

***

The day lapses without a word, and the night is silent without Ben’s voices. Whatever syndicate their last contact worked for will have a bounty out for them now, and Finn can’t sleep. 

He never touched the whiskey, but after hours of trying to sleep he blinks spitefully at it and swipes it off the floor as he leaves his room. He could just swig it out of the bottle, but no. Maybe he’s fucking the ex-Supreme Leader in a powder-blue light-hauler, fine, but he hasn’t fallen far enough to down liquor out of a bottle, not yet.

The sensors show one life-form down in the cargo bay, so Finn corrals the bottle and two glasses into one arm and descends the ladder. There’s a weird smell in the air like something’s burning, a sound like a hoverdroid, and when Finn jumps the last rung and turns, he practically drops the glasses.

Ben’s there, training, but not with a practice rod. The red lightsaber flashes and crackles like something alive, but with a final blinding spin it shuts off, and Ben stands perfectly still, breathing hard.

“That’s pretty cool,” Finn says. The mask turns to him, then Ben shrugs and jerks two fingers. The bottle and one glass jump out of Finn’s arms and into his hand. He pours himself a glass, then walks back and deigns to hand Finn the bottle like a fucking normal person. Belatedly, Ben seems to realize he can’t drink without taking off the mask, and Finn tries not to smirk.

“So,” Finn says, managing to suppress the unsteadiness at having things sail through air for no reason. “Not talking to your friend tonight?”

It’s a joke. Mostly.

“We’re not speaking.”

Finn can’t help it; it’s been too bizarre a day, and he laughs. The mask turns to him, and something in the way it moves looks—devastated.

Finn coughs and rolls his shoulders, controlling himself. “I mean, sorry to hear that.”

Is that why he went on a murder-spree? Because he had a fight with his imaginary friend?

“She’s not imaginary.”

Finn clinks his tumbler down on a cargo crate. “Will you—stop—reading my mind?”

“It’s not intentional,” Ben says, voice pained. “I can’t control it.”

Finn doubts that. Shit, if it’s true, it would be awful. How could you live if no one could lie to you?

Finn sips the liquor and wonders why he came down here instead of getting drunk by himself in his room. “So. It’s a she, huh?” 

What if it’s his mother or something? Does Kylo Ren even have a mother? He must. There’s a strange thought.

“I don’t want to talk about her.”

“I--okay.”

“Do you ever wonder what would’ve happened if you stayed?” Ben asks.

It takes Finn a second to track. “What, with the Order? I woulda been sent to reconditioning—”

“With the Resistance. You had a chance to join, but you refused.”

He doesn’t bother asking how Ben knows this. Do his nightmares leak, too? Can Ben see all the things that haunt him? Probably. And that must be awful, too, to be forced to sit through nightmares that aren’t even yours.

Finn should not be sympathizing with Kylo Ren here.

“I ran away because I know a losing cause when I see it,” Finn snaps. “And I don’t need to justify myself to you.”

“You can’t run away from them any more than I can,” Ben says. He doesn’t even bother to look at Finn.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Do you want me to feel sorry for you?”

“No.”

Ben seems to realize that he can’t drink without taking off his mask, so he slams the tumbler down on a crate and looks like he’s about to go back to swinging the stupid lightsaber around.

“Why do you wear that, anyway?” Finn asks, tilting his glass at the mask because he feels like picking a fight. “What’s so terrible about what you’ve got under there?”

The pile of black fabric shrugs. “Nothing, really. Just a face.”

“Why not take it off?”

The fabric shrugs again, but it’s with purpose this time, freeing Ben’s arm so his glove can move upward. But it doesn’t go to the mask, it goes to the soft bulge in Finn’s shorts.

Finn’s not even surprised; he’s relieved. But he closes his fingers around Ben’s black sleeve.

“No,” Finn says.

“No? Bored of me already?”

“If we do this, we do it on my terms.”

“You’re not in a position to negotiate.”

Finn digs his nails into Ben’s sleeve. “Get on your knees, Ben.”

The line of Ben’s shoulders stiffen. He’s interested.

Finn trails his fingers down Ben’s arm, and his voice comes out gentle, coaxing. “I’m gonna give you what you want. All you gotta do is get on your knees, Ben.”

The fabric around his throat bobs, and after a moment of hesitation, he lowers himself to his knees.

The mask bends down, probably expecting Finn to push him over on all fours and take him from behind. There’s a taut anticipation in the lines of the robe. He’s gotta be sore, right? But he wants it, and Finn wants it too.

Finn presses the pads of his fingers against the dull, dented metal of the mask, and Ben sucks in a breath.

“I’m going to take this off,” Finn says.

“Thats unnecessary,” Ben breathes.

“Maybe I don’t want to fuck a pile of dirty laundry.”

“Does my smell offend you, Mr. Solo?”

“A lot about you offends me. I’m gonna shove my cock in your mouth.”

Finn tugs again, and Ben doesn’t stop him.

Black hair is the first thing that appears, lank, then a smooth pale chin. Lips made for sucking cock. A nose that goes on too long, a prominent brow-ridge, deep circles around his eye-sockets, long lashes framing eyes that stare resolutely at the floor. A scar, faded, trails up his cheek.

Still, aside from that it’s an unremarkable face, youngish, but one look at it and Finn understands why he wears the mask. This is a naked face, not made to hide things.

“Look at me, Ben.”

Ben hesitates, then his chin jerks upward like someone who’s used to being on his knees, to following orders. A few seconds later Ben meets his eyes. 

Finn was right: he does look like shit. Though he’s decent-looking, his eyes are bloodshot, red-rimmed, still shiny enough to make Finn wonder if he’s getting into something he doesn’t want to be anywhere near.

The ex-Supreme Leader, he could handle—maybe. It’s a power fantasy, you know? Who wouldn’t want the monster ripped out of your nightmares and pushed to its knees? But this face, this is Ben, the one who makes good caf every morning, the one who leaves a nutrition bar on the table for Finn, the one who sits across from him while Finn eats dinner, silently scanning a data pad, letting both of them pretend they’re not grateful for the company.

This isn’t what he’s supposed to be thinking. Ben drops his gaze back to the floor, almost resigned.

Finn slides his fingers through the slick strands. Ben shudders and tries to pretend he didn’t, and Finn’s cock stirs. This is better—this is on-script. “Take those gloves off for me, too.”

Yeah, Ben likes this, being on his knees and following orders. He peels off his gloves to reveal pinkish hands, calloused, nails bitten but clean. They’re hairy In a way that’s almost obscene. Finn’s not sure what he expected, really. Something sleek and battle-ready like the gloves and the mask, something sterile.

Ben holds up the gloves for Finn like an offering, some desperate plea to please him. What’s Finn supposed to do? He takes them, tucking them in his back pocket with the shank.

“Good,” Finn tells him. Ben shivers, and Finn picks up the whiskey and hands it to him. “Drink.”

Ben’s eyes stay on Finn’s as he accepts the tumbler and presses his lips to the glass. The skin of his throat bobs and the smell of vapor joins the dissipating smell of the lightsaber ionizing the air.

“Good, Ben.” Fuck, Ben likes that. He can’t hide it at all. “Now, you know what I want.”

Ben does. He licks his lips and unbuttons Finn’s pants. There’s nothing tentative about it. Ben knows what he wants, and he pulls down Finn’s underwear and slides his hardening cock between his lips.

Finn loses himself in the sensations. He hasn’t done this enough to tell a good blowjob from a bad blowjob, because they’re all mouths on your cock, but Ben’s tongue is hot and his lips are so thick and wet and soft. It’s the visuals that are getting Finn off, that and the feeling of Ben’s hair sliding through his fingers.

“Good,” Finn breathes, tugging gently on his scalp. “Good, Ben.”

Ben’s almost choking on Finn’s cock and the strength of his own reaction to those words. Finn strokes his hair, rewarded with Ben’s indignant swallow around his cock as he tries to hide the groan of pleasure that escapes. This is humiliating for him, and he loves it.

Finn smirks, and directs his thoughts at the furrowed brows under the black fringe.

_You like hearing you’re good, don’t you? You are good, with that filthy mouth ready to take my cum. So good._

Ben shudders with pleasure.

Finn closes his fist in Ben’s hair, pulling him off his cock, and the sound that comes out of his mouth makes Finn’s mouth flood with need. He likes his hair pulled, too, and Finn is starting to understand what it is Ben wants out of all this, what he won’t admit he wants.

“You have no fucking idea what I want,” Ben spits. Finn pulls his hair harder and his cock jumps. “You don’t even know what you want.”

“You think you do?”

“You’re the one who needs this.”

“Fuck you,” Finn says. Ben smiles, and somehow he manages to look menacing even as he kneels naked three inches from Finn’s dripping cock. 

Ben bares his crooked teeth and nips at the skin of Finn’s abdomen in a way that might be mistaken for affection, but the nails digging into Finn’s hamstrings tell a different story. And yet here’s Finn, enjoying the way Ben claws at him, ready to rip into Finn’s soft underbelly.

Ben gasps when Finn slides his fingers back into his hair, massaging his bitten-down fingernails against the man’s scalp. Ben’s hair’s so soft, so defiant, sprinting to outrun regulation-length. Finn’s is long too these days too, trussed up tight in jagged braids the way some other nameless drifter showed him. He grew it long because he thought it could remind him he was free. It was a cute idea, once.

“Your guilt is tedious,” Ben says against his skin, but there’s an edge to it, some naked need grasping blindly for an object.

“Why do you always gotta use words like that, huh? _Tedious._ And before you talk about my guilt, I’m not the one arguing with imaginary friends about all my crimes,” Finn points out, threading a ribbon of black hair along his fingers.

Instead of answering, Ben meets his eyes and slides Finn’s cock past his lips. But it’s only a moment before he backs off again, reaching one glove up to ghost along Finn’s glans.

Ben arches one eyebrow, and he looks like a fucking prince and Finn hates him for it. “You’re a coward,” Ben says, pumping him.

Finn yanks Ben’s hair back by the roots, enjoying the hiss of pain. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m a coward, alright? I left the Order because I’m a coward and I left people to die because I’m a coward. But I’m still better than you.”

Finn balls his fists in Ben’s hair and shoves him forward onto his cock, because he’s not going to think. Ben takes him all the way, undulating his throat and the back of his tongue like he’s teaching himself some filthy alien language. Finn can’t help but moan at the sight of his nose disappearing into the coarse hairs below Finn’s abs. His stubbled chin works against his testicles.

Finn grabs the back of his head and picks up the pace, thrusting fast enough that Ben has to struggle to keep his teeth out of way. Finn doesn’t mind. He’s a soldier, he can take a little pain.

Ben moans and gags around him but if he wanted Finn to stop he’d push him off, so Finn keeps going.

“You love this, don’t you?” Finn continues. “You love it—when I tell you—you’re a—monster—you don’t—even—deserve this—”

A ragged sound rips from Ben’s throat as he comes into his hand, and Finn spills into his mouth a second later, falling forward and using his punishing grip on Ben’s hair for balance. Finn waits for Ben to try to get up, to stomp off to the ‘fresher and sulk like he always does, but he doesn’t, he just swallows around Finn’s cock and keeps making pathetic little suckling movements. When Finn straightens and looks down at him, his eyes are pressed closed and tears trail down his scar.

Well, fuck. Hopefully the tears are from gagging.

Ben breathes out through his nose and lets his mouth go slack. A rope of spit joins his chin to the tip of Finn’s cock for a moment, glistening like some silver chain under his open lips, and then it snaps. 

Finn offers him the whiskey and juts his chin to the cargo crate. There’s no plan, really—what are they gonna talk about? What is there to talk about after all this? But neither of them wants to be alone.

“They’ll have a bounty on us,” Finn says as Ben hikes up his pants and settles down next to him on the crate, nestling the glass in his lap. “What’s our next move?”

 _“Our_ , Mr. Solo? Not going to escape the madman who talks to voices?”

Finn glances meaningfully at the lightsaber. “If it’s all the same to you I’d rather have you in my corner.”

Ben snorts into the whiskey glass and hands it off to Finn. He sips, then swirls the liquid under the yellow tungsten lights, then sips again.

“I do think about it,” Finn says.

“ ‘It’?”

“What would’ve happened if I stayed. Sometimes I feel like there’s another life out there and I’m living it and this is all a nightmare.”

“Is this life so bad?”

Finn shrugs. The sex is a radical improvement, sure, but. “It’s not really a life out here, is it?”

“No,” Ben agrees. He looks out the porthole, and works his jaw, thinking. “So why not go back? Join the Resistance, find redemption?”

Finn coughs and nearly spits out the liquor. “ _Redemption_? Do you even hear yourself sometimes?”

Ben looks, of all things, offended, and before he can say something cutting, Finn shakes his head.

“It’s not my fight,” he says. “War, armies—I’ve done my time, you know? I feel bad for—” He stops short of saying Rey’s name, or Han’s, or Poe’s. He doesn’t even remember the Wookiee’s name, and the faces have long-since faded. “I didn’t ask for this.”

He doesn’t voice the accusation, and Ben doesn’t say anything about it. What’s there to say, really? You personally oversaw the army that kidnapped me as an infant? But Finn’s seen enough of the galaxy now to know that part of his programming, at least, was true: wherever he was taken from was probably a bad, bad place, and Finn was lucky to get out of it. The Order really did give him a chance.

Finn fiddles with his glass, watching the way the light catches the occasional star. This far out, there aren’t many, but Finn prefers a sky without stars. Close to the Core the stars were packed in, burning holes in the sky, like the whole black robe of space was gonna catch fire any second and fall down on him.

He hands the glass back to Ben, who slumps against the bulkhead and closes his eyes.

“I did walk away,” Ben says, holding the glass in numb fingers.

“What?”

“From the Order. There was no coup. I just got in a ship in the middle of gamma-cycle, left Hux dead on the floor, and left.”

Finn turns to watch his face, lit faintly by the stars. “You’re serious.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m serious.”

“Why? Why would anybody do that?”

“It wasn’t my war.”

Finn shakes his head and snorts, a little helplessly. “You were the Supreme Leader,” he says. “If it wasn’t your war, whose was it?”

Ben doesn’t have an answer to that.

***

They drink until the glass is empty, then refill it, then maybe they refill it again. Somewhere in the second glass Finn leads them back upstairs to Ben’s quarters— _cabin_ , damn it—and by the third, Ben lets Finn wrap Ben’s hair around his fingers.

He’s not drunk, neither of them is drunk, but they’re past the point of careful and it feels good. It’s Ben who escalates things, bringing his huge obscene hand down to palm Finn’s cock through his still-damp pants, and Finn makes a decision.

He stands and yanks his own shirt up and over his head and throws it to the floor.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Finn replies as he unbuttons his pants. “Get naked. Now.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to. Get. Naked.”

Ben hesitates, and Finn can’t fucking stand it anymore so he pulls the shank from where it still sits in his back pocket, balls Ben’s shirt fabric in his hand, and slices it with the precision cut Phasma drilled him on a thousand times. _If you need to extricate yourself from a hostile containment apparatus, it is essential that you deploy your blade to achieve maximum leverage…_

Ben’s chest is a work of art, expanding and contracting forlornly under the fabric as Finn pushes it off his shoulders. 

“You do the rest,” Finn orders, brushing at the air with a vague gesture. He tosses the shank carelessly to the floor.

Ben stands still for a moment, then, methodically, begins to undress. Finn pops his own fly open so he can stroke his cock. Good, good, keep going.

And it is good. Finn appreciates a good chest, well-defined arms, the thighs that can only come from loading a squat bar with huge amounts of weight. At this distance the scar on his face is more noticeable. Maybe he’s self-conscious about it? But Finn has his share of scars, too, and he likes it. Ben’s already hard, his cock bouncing against his thighs as he bends to peel off his socks and kick his pants away.

Ben stands naked, hands at his sides and chin up, for all the world like Finn would do when they called for him to strip at medical inspections, like someone accustomed to thinking of his body as someone else’s tool. Finns cock softens a little at the resignation there.

“Are you not entertained?” Ben sneers, eyeing his cock.

“Shut up. Come here,” Finn says, and to his shock the order is obeyed. When Ben’s a few feet from him, Finn gestures for him to pause and stands. He pulls off his shirt, and Ben steps back, wary, as Finn quickly and efficiently divests himself of his clothes.

“Ah,” Ben says. “I see what this is.”

“Oh, you do? What is this, Supreme Leader?”

His jaw clenches, but Finn doesn’t miss the way his cock jerks when he looks down at Finn’s body. “You want something more than a distraction.”

“This isn’t for me,” Finn lies. He settles back on the bed and Ben relaxes a little at the distance between them. Finn gestures at the mattress beside him. “I want something worth looking at while I fuck you.”

The flash of desire in Ben’s eyes, quickly squashed, revives Finn’s interest, and Ben turns away and kneels on the bed like someone who’s spent a lifetime getting on his knees.

“Not like that,” Finn says sharply. “On your back.”

Ben hesitates, almost modest, like an officer cadet who’s never used a communal shower. Maybe it’s the alcohol, maybe it’s the sheer sense of why-the-fuck-notness, but Ben complies.

“Open your knees,” Finn says, grabbing the bottle of lube. He edges Ben’s knees apart with his elbow, and at the sight he puts the bottle down. 

“Fuck,” Finn breathes. He’s never had anyone so open for him like this. Ben’s cock is beautiful, swollen and purple against the pale scar-pocked skin of his stomach, and at the way Finn’s looking at him his whole chest flushes pink.

Finn drops to his knees beside the cot.

“What are you—shit,” Ben gasps. Finn moans around Ben’s cock, sweeping the thick head wetly over his lips. His eyes meet Ben’s for a second and he thinks the other man might actually push him away, but he almost throws himself back on the bed, eyes closed, resigned, apparently, to enjoying this.

Finn doesn’t want to let it go too far, so he only takes Ben down his throat a few times before he pulls off, planting wet kisses along the black hairs, his inner thigh, the crease of his hips. He wants to lick his way up his chest but that’s too much, too intimate, something they won’t be able to excuse in the morning when the whiskey wears off.

Reluctantly, Finn picks up the lube and squirts it into his palm. He pushes Ben back from the edge of the bed and wrangles his long legs around his waist so that his ass is practically in Finn’s lap, and this time, at least, he doesn’t protest when Finn slides a finger in.

Without a mask his facial expressions are completely naked, and Finn takes his time, mesmerized by the way those lips part around every moan. It’s not supposed to hurt, not this time, because Finn doesn’t want it to. When he’s loose enough for Finn to slide three fingers in, he pushes in with slow, lazy thrusts, savoring every time Ben’s breath catches.

He bends forward, putting his face close enough to Ben’s to talk to him while he fucks him.

“Good, that’s good, that’s so good, Ben.”

Ben squeezes his eyes shut, panting, but he doesn’t stop Finn, who balls his clean hand in Ben’s gorgeous hair, mussing it, leaving him totally debauched.

“Touch yourself,” Finn orders, and Ben’s fist lurches to his cock like he was waiting for the command. Ben keeps his head wrenched to the side, carefully avoiding any eye-gazing, any semblance of a kiss, because whatever Ben says they both know that’s not what this is. That would be reckless, crazy, even crazier than the way Ben’s hips arch up into Finn’s thrusts, the way he pants when the ends of Finn’s braids slap his cheeks, the heat of him that feels so different like this, naked and open.

“That’s good, you feel so fucking good, Ben, get in my head and feel what you’re doing to me, do you feel this? You’re so—”

With a cry, Ben comes so hard cum splashes on his collarbone, and Finn, thrusting violently, bends just enough to lick it off him. It’s hot and bitter and salty and Finn comes soundlessly, putting all his energy into enjoying the sensations before he falls over onto Ben’s chest.

Ben strokes his hair, rolling the braids between his fingers like he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, and Finn exhales against Ben’s shoulder. No, he didn’t need this.

***

Maybe they fall asleep, because the next thing Finn remembers, Ben’s shoving him off his body to go clean up. When he hears the ‘fresher door open again Finn heads, naked, to wash up, passing Ben wordlessly where he stands, also naked, in the galley drinking water. When Finn’s done with the sink he heads back to his own cabin, but as he passes Ben’s, the door’s wide-open again. Ben’s sitting cross-legged on his wrecked cot, staring out at the darkness like he’s meditating.

“Come here,” Ben says.

“Why?”

“Because I ordered you to.”

“Fuck you,” Finn says out of habit. He scratches the back of his head, unconsciously toying with the spot Ben tugged on his scalp.

“Poor choice of words. Come here, Finn.”

He’s never said Finn’s name, not once, and Finn’s surprised when his knees collide with the side of the bed. He crosses his arms over his chest like he’s not naked, like he’s not already warily certain about what it is Ben wants.

“Sit,” Ben says, still watching the stars.

Despite his better judgment, Finn sits. He almost asks Ben what’s wrong, but he’s afraid the answer might involve the two of them talking about what just happened here. He perches awkwardly, naked, hands in his lap, until Ben sighs and lays down. Not sure what else to do, Finn slides his legs under the covers and lays down, too. The bed’s small enough that they’re forced to lay back-to-back, and even that much intimacy is suffocating for Finn. This isn’t allowed. This isn’t how it’s supposed to work, whatever it is they’re doing here.

“The Order’s assaulting a Resistance base on Chandrila,” Ben reports dully.

“Oh,” Finn says, pulling the sheet up to his shoulders. “You’re still getting intelligence reports?”

Order news calms him. He might as well be shooting the shit in his old barracks, playing the sabacc tournaments they always used to hide from Phasma. Not stiffly lying with his body pressed against the ex-Supreme Leader’s bare ass.

“The odds are overwhelming,” Ben says, not answering Finn’s question. “They’ll be slaughtered.”

“Oh,” Finn says again, thinking of Rey. It’s a good thing, really, that she died there on Takodana. She died a hero, taking that droid back to the people she believed in. Better that than getting ground down by a brutal war, or worse, going back to Jakku to wait for the family that was never coming back.

But at least she died for something. Finn won’t.

What should Finn say? Congratulations, Supreme Leader, that the army used to own is finally going to win? Sorry you walked away from the winning team?

Finn finally decides on something neutral. “So that’s it. The First Order wins.”

“Rey is there.”

Finn jerks the sheet away from him. “What?”

“She survived. She joined the Resistance.”

Finn opens his mouth to accuse Ben of lying to him, using his memories against him, but it’s such a ridiculous thing to lie about, and anyway Ben sounds too exhausted, too wrung-out, to be saying anything but the truth. He sounds like he did when he said _please_. 

“Your friend,” Finn begins, because it’s crazy, but maybe this is what his life has come to, one massive cosmic joke being played by the Force on someone else.

“Exactly,” Ben says.

Rey is alive. He left her to die, but she’s not dead. It feels like a sign, like something important.

“And she’s been trying to talk you into joining up?”

In answer, Ben turns and slides his arm around Finn’s body, resting his palm over the short hairs trailing from his navel to his crotch. No one has ever done this for him before, and he’d bet the galaxy no one’s ever done it for Ben, either. The mask is still in the cargo bay somewhere; they forgot to bring it up.

“You’re thinking of going,” Finn says. It’s not really a question. “To help them.”

Ben sighs against Finn’s neck. Finn’s identification chip is somewhere under Ben’s lips, woven with nanoscale threads into the net of nerves and muscle and tendon, unextractable, the indelible reminder that he belongs to the Order, just, he suspects, like Ben did. It doesn’t really matter that Ben ran the place for a while, does it? Finn thinks of him as the Supreme Leader, but he was never a leader. Ben’s programming was different, his privileges and burdens distinct, but he wasn’t any less an instrument than Finn was.

“It’s not our fight,” Ben says against his shoulder.

Without meaning to, Finn settles back against him. “That’s not what I asked.”

“Yeah,” Ben says. His voice comes out strained, almost embarrassed, barely rising over the sounds of the hyperdrive. “Yeah, I’m thinking about it.”

Finn blinks, letting his breathing sync to Ben’s. In the darkness, afraid but sick of running, he closes his eyes, and takes Ben’s hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! A huge thanks to [Jessa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jessa/pseuds/Jessa) for modding this fantastic story and art collection and [QueenofCarrotFlowers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfCarrotFlowers/pseuds/QueenOfCarrotFlowers) for the beautiful moodboard!


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